Raising Intelligence: The Most Underestimated Breakthrough

I don’t have any specific information to support this, but I think we’re likely to see in the next decade an approachable means of raising human intelligence by 10% (around 10 IQ points).

I think this is the sleeper breakthrough.

There are countless efforts in motion around understanding the brain and our emotions and our ability to focus, etc. It’s mostly being directed towards weight loss and depression, but I think a natural side effect of this will be a minor bump in intelligence.

This isn’t even accounting for what will happen once they realize it’s possible and start actually trying. It could be that jumps of 20 IQ points or more could be possible. Who knows.

It’s not as movie-plot sounding as something like AI, or cold fusion, or any of the other things we consider to be media-worthy. But I think this might make far more difference. Let’s look at a few possibilities for impact to the world:

People making better decisions regarding mates and reproduction

People planning more for the future

People choosing not to engage in crime

People being better at crime when they do it

An injection of creative solutions to everyday problems

These are just a few I can think of at the moment, with the top three having the largest potential impact.